-- by James Smith
 |
| Nelly Mejia |
“Boxy,” Nelly Mejia says, pushing outwards with her hands to
pantomime the action. “That’s what we call it in the Dominican Republic, the
avoiding closeness with people. I’m like that.” A teacher with six years behind
her and more as a tutor, Nelly considers the transformation that teaching has
had on her life.
“I’ve learned a lot from my students,” she says. It’s what
she enjoys about teaching the most, but in the beginning she was held back by
her personality. “I’m not a very close person with people, although they wouldn’t
say that now,” she says, “but my students – they don’t mind coming up and
giving me a hug. I’ve learned to be more physically expressive with people.”
Nelly went through what a lot of young teachers do; the
hierarchical expressions of power in the classroom. The idea that the teacher rules
from an island nation consisting only of herself and her treasure trove of
knowledge, shouting wisdom across the chasm of the sea to students in their
burgeoning kingdom -- eternally unapproachable. “I was the teacher,” she says
and they, she waves a hand and speaks in her sassiest Dominican accent, “bye.”
But that changed as she developed and reflected on her classroom
and her practices. She says it was two or three years ago teaching high school
when she questioned herself: “Why would I want my students to be afraid of me?”
And while teachers can probably come up with a dozen reasons exactly why they
would want students to tremble at their footfalls and to whisper their name
with the quiet dread saved only for The Boogeyman and Monday morning tests,
this was not what Nelly wanted for herself.
“I realized that by being open, it facilitates the process,”
she explains. “Back in the past, when I had to scold, it was the scolding of
the year, but now I can say, ‘Let’s pause it a second and talk about things’. I
don’t use the Dominican in me,” she says, leaning forward with a threatening
air, “because you don’t want to see that.”
Emerging from her box took time, but she says two major
lessons resonate with her from her experiences: the first is to not be
embarrassed by mistakes. They are something all teachers are prone to; all
people in fact, whether they are students, teachers, janitors, or CEO’s.
Mistakes happen and her students taught her to overcome that.
But more importantly, she indicates with a dismissive wave as
her voice sinks into a conspiratorial tone, the tone with which teachers
communicate with each other the hidden lives behind their academic personas: “They
taught me not to be afraid of the consequences. To not be afraid.”
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